The twin towers were an icon for England and Wembley, and their demolition in December 2002 upset many members of the public.[2] Debris from the Old Wembley Stadium was used to make the award-winning Northala Fields in Northolt, Ealing.

At the end of the exhibition, an entrepreneur Arthur Elvin (later to become Sir Arthur Elvin) started buying the derelict buildings one by one, demolishing them, and selling off the scrap. The stadium had gone into liquidation, after it was pronounced "financially unviable".[14] Elvin offered to buy the stadium for £127,000, using a £12,000 downpayment and the balance plus interest payable over ten years.[15]

After complications following the death of James White, the original Stadium owner, Elvin bought Wembley Stadium from the new owners, (Wembley Company) at the original price, since they honoured Elvin's original deal. They then immediately bought it back from Elvin, leaving him with a healthy profit. Instead of cash he received shares, which gave him the largest stake in Wembley Stadium and he became chairman.[15]

The electric scoreboard and the all encircling roof, made from aluminium and translucent glass, were added in 1963.

The Royal Box in 1986.

The stadium's distinctive Twin Towers became its trademark and nickname.[16] Also well known were the thirty-nine steps needed to be climbed to reach the Royal box and collect a trophy (and winners'/losers' medals). Wembley was the first pitch to be referred to as "Hallowed Turf", with many stadia around the world borrowing this phrase. In 1934, the Empire Pool was built nearby. The 'Wembley Stadium Collection' is held by the National Football Museum. The stadium closed in October 2000, and demolition commenced in December 2002, completing in 2003 for redevelopment. The top of one of the twin towers was erected as a memorial in the park on the north side of Overton Close in the Saint Raphael's Estate.

The Empire Stadium was built in exactly 300 days at the cost of £750,000. Described as the world's greatest sporting arena, it was ready only 4 days before the White Horse Final. The FA had not considered admission by ticket, grossly underestimating the anticipation of the number of fans turning up to the 104 gates on match day. However, after the game, every event, apart from the 1982 replay,[17] was ticketed.

Crowds define the edges of the pitch

The first event held at the stadium was the FA Cup final on 28 April 1923 between Bolton Wanderers and West Ham United. This is known as the White Horse Final. Such was the eagerness of fans and casual observers to attend the final at the new national stadium that vast numbers of people crammed through the 104 turnstiles into the stadium, far exceeding its official 127,000 capacity. The crowds overflowed onto the pitch as there was no room on the terraces. Estimates of the number of fans in attendance range from 240,000[18] to well over 300,000.[19] It is estimated that another 60,000 were locked outside the gates. The FA were forced to refund 10% of the total gate money to fans unable to reach the terraces. The White Horse Final has the highest ever unofficial "non-racing" sports attendance in the world,[citation needed] which is very unlikely to be broken in the near future. It was thought that the match would not be played because of the volume of spectators inside the stadium that had spilled onto the pitch. That was until mounted police, including Police Constable George Scorey and his white horse, Billy, slowly pushed the masses back to the sides of the field of play for the FA Cup Final to start, just 45 minutes late. In honour of Billy, the footbridge outside the new Wembley Stadium has been named the White Horse Bridge. The official attendance is often quoted as 126,047. The match was a 2–0 victory for Bolton Wanderers, with David Jack scoring the first ever goal at Wembley.

Prior to the 1923 Wembley stadium, international football games had been played by England at various different stadia. Most early internationals (including the first ever international football match (1870)) were played at the Oval, which had been built in 1845 and has always been a major cricket venue. For the first 27 years the only International England games played at Wembley were fixtures against Scotland, with other games played elsewhere until 1951. The first team other than Scotland to face England at the venue was Argentina.[22]

In 1956 and 1971, it was the venue of the home matches of the Great Britain national football team for the qualification matches to the Summer Olympic Games against Bulgaria.[23]

In 1966 it was the leading venue of the World Cup. It hosted the final game, where the tournament hosts, England, won 4–2 after extra-time against West Germany. Thirty years later, it was the principal venue of Euro 96, hosting all of England's matches, as well as the tournament's final, where reunified Germany won the cup for a third time with the first international Golden Goal in football history. (Germany - Czech Republic 2:1)

Germany had beaten England on penalties in the semi-final after a 1-1 draw, with Gareth Southgate missing a penalty for England in the shoot-out.

England's final two competitive games played at the stadium resulted in 0–1 defeats for England to Scotland and Germany respectively. The first defeat was in the play-off for the Euro 2000 qualifiers in November 1999, but England still went through as they won the other leg 2-0 at Hampden Park. The very last game at Wembley, however, was the opening qualifier for the 2002 World Cup, and defeat prompted the resignation of England manager Kevin Keegan at the end of the game after just 18 months in charge.

In March 1998, Arsenal made a bid to buy Wembley in hope of gaining a larger stadium to replace their Highbury ground which had a capacity of less than 40,000 and was unsuitable for expansion, but the bid was later abandoned in favour of building the 60,000 capacity Emirates Stadium which was opened in 2006.[26]

The last club match of all was the 2000 Charity Shield, in which Chelsea beat Manchester United 2–0. The last international match was on 7 October in Kevin Keegan's last game as England manager. England were beaten 0–1 by Germany, with Dietmar Hamann scoring the last goal at Wembley. On that day, Tony Adams made his 60th Wembley appearance, a record for any player.[29] Adams also claimed England's final goal at the stadium, having scored in the previous home fixture against Ukraine on 31 May.[30]

The stadium set the international record crowd for a rugby league game when 73,631 turned out for the 1992 Rugby League World Cup Final between Great Britain and Australia. The Mal Meninga-led Australian team won the game 10–6 on the back of a Steve Renouf try in the north-east corner and Meninga's goal kicking. The 1995 World Cup final between England and Australia was also played at Wembley with 66,540 spectators watching Australia win 16–8. The final of the 1999 Challenge Cup was the last to be played at the stadium, with the annual fixture moving to other grounds before returning to the new Wembley upon its completion in 2007.

Between 1936 and 1960 Wembley hosted all of the first fifteen finals of the Speedway World Championship. It hosted another nine World Finals before the last one at Wembley took place in 1981 in front of 92,500 fans, just shy of the venues record speedway attendance of 95,000 set at the 1938 World Final.[33]

The Speedway track at Wembley Stadium was 345 metres (377 yards) in length and was notoriously difficult to ride for those not used to it. Despite regularly being used for World Championship and other British championship meetings, Wembley long had a reputation as a track that was difficult to pass on which often led to processional racing. Among those who never performed well there despite their credentials include 1973 World Champion Jerzy Szczakiel (who won his title at home in Poland and two weeks later under difficult circumstances failed to score in the World Team Cup Final at Wembley), while others such as Ivan Mauger and Ole Olsen often seemed to find their best form at the stadium. The track itself was located inside of the Greyhound racing track, but intersected the stadiums playing field at the corners. The pits were located in the tunnel at the eastern end of the stadium.

The track record at Wembley will forever be held by Denmark's World Champion of 1984, 1985 & 1988Erik Gundersen. In Heat 6 of the 1981 World Final, Gundersen set the 4 lap record (clutch start) of 66.8 seconds. As this was the last time the stadium was used for speedway racing it remains the track record.

Though the venue was not traditionally a regular host of rugby union matches, England played a friendly against Canada on 17 October 1992, as their regular home stadium at Twickenham was undergoing redevelopment. Wales played their Five Nations and autumn international home matches at Wembley (as Twickenham Stadium would not accommodate them) while Cardiff Arms Park was being rebuilt as the Millennium Stadium in the late 1990s (a deal reciprocated for FA Cups during the construction of the new Wembley Stadium). In total there were seven internationals.

Wembley was also a regular venue for greyhound racing. It was the first sport Sir Arthur Elvin introduced to the stadium. The opening meeting was in 1927 and 50,000 people attended to watch the first race won by a greyhound named Spin.[35] The dog racing provided the stadium with its main source of regular income, especially in the early days, and continued to attract crowds of several thousand up until the early 1960s (Photo of Wembley Stadium, prepared for the next greyhound race:[3]). The stadium staged its last greyhound race meeting in December 1998 with the owners, the Greyhound Racing Association, citing economic reasons and the lack of plans for a greyhound track in the stadium's redevelopment.[36]

Two of the biggest events in the greyhound racing calendar are the St Leger and Trafalgar Cup[37] Both were originally held at Wembley, the St Leger from 1928 until 1998 after which it moved to Wimbledon Stadium and the Trafalgar Cup from 1929 until 1998 after which it moved to Oxford Stadium. In 1931 the famous greyhound Mick the Miller won the St Leger.

Wembley's owner's refusal to cancel the regular greyhound racing meant that the match between Uruguay and France in the 1966 World Cup was played at White City.

From 1958 until the mid-1970s, hurling and gaelic football tournaments known as the "Wembley Tournaments" were held at Wembley Stadium to bring the Irish sports to expatriates in Britain at the time. Several Gaelic football games were played in Wembley Stadium, most of them exhibition matches, most notably Kerry and Down in 1961.

The stadium also staged women's field hockey matches in which England appeared in their annual match between 1951 to 1969 and then from 1971 to 1991.

On 26 May 1975, in front of 90,000 people, Evel Knievel crashed while trying to land a jump over thirteen single decker city buses, an accident which resulted in his initial retirement from his daredevil life.

Michael Jackson (15 times, most by any artist in the history of Wembley Stadium, selling over 1.1 million tickets in the process)

During Michael Jackson's Bad World Tour in 1988, seven sell-out concerts were staged at Wembley which included five in a row, and two at a later date. Each concert had an attendance of 72,000 people. According to the Guinness Book of World Records Jackson set a new world record with 504,000 people attending the seven sold out concerts. Over 2 million people tried to buy tickets. More concerts could have been staged but the stadium's quota was full. These seven concerts were highly anticipated and created huge media attention. He was also given a special award by Wembley Stadium Officials for achieving this milestone. The concert on 16 July 1988 (One of the seven sell-out concert) was attended by Princess Diana and Prince Charles. The DVD of this concert (Michael Jackson: Live at Wembley July 16, 1988) was released on 18 September 2012 as part of the 25th Anniversary reissue of his 1987 hit album Bad and as well as a stand-alone DVD. A further five sell-out concerts followed in 1992 during his Dangerous World Tour and his last three shows in 1997 during HIStory World Tour brought total tickets sale over 1.1 million. To date, this record is not broken.

The Who (18 August 1979: "The Who And Friends Roar In". Following a series of smaller warm-ups this was the band's first major concert after the death of drummer Keith Moon the previous year. An 80,000 sell-out.)

Elton John (7 times, including 1975, 1984, 1992 and 1998. He headlined The Summer of 84 concert, part of his European Express Tour, along with bands such as Paul Young, Kool and The Gang and Wang Chung. The show was recorded for a Showtime concert special.)

Bon Jovi played three consecutive nights in June 1995, which were filmed for Live from London. They were also the last musical act to play at the old Wembley before it was closed, and they were scheduled to be the first band to play at the new Wembley Stadium, with concerts on 10 and 11 June 2006. However, due to the delays in the construction of the new stadium, the concerts were moved to the National Bowl in Milton Keynes.